


Settle Down

by Spiesbian



Category: Spies Are Forever - Talkfine/Tin Can Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But mostly angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, M/M, Multiple Endings, implied/referenced panic attack, in the second chapter, weird bittersweet tone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-13 11:47:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18468313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiesbian/pseuds/Spiesbian
Summary: Owen's starting to have some...doubtsabout the spy agencies. But that's ridiculous, right? There's nothing to worry about.





	1. begonia

Owen tried to take deep breaths to slow his pounding heart. Curt had finally fallen asleep again and he didn’t want to wake him up just because he couldn’t calm down. For god’s sake, Owen wasn’t the one who just had a panic attack, he had to chill the fuck out. 

_You’re property of the United States government._ Those words echoed in his head, the phrase Barb used whenever Curt started to get a little to cocky on a job. Owen knew she didn’t mean anything malicious by it, but the more those words crashed around in his mind the more pissed he got. 

That was all he and Curt were. Property of their respective governments. Cannon fodder to be used until they were blasted apart and the next one after them stepped up to the plate. Really, given how risky the missions they were assigned were, it was a miracle they were alive right now. He knew that statistically they weren’t going to survive. If they kept being put into lines of fire like this, every mission became a toss up for just getting out alive. 

And that was ignoring the situation they were in right now. Holding his partner as tight as he could without waking him up in the middle of a shitty hotel room. It wasn’t even a good fix. Owen couldn’t be there for every panic attack. Curt couldn’t be there for every dark impulse. How much longer was it going to be until either one of them didn’t _care_ if they died?

Curt shifted against him and for a moment Owen panicked. He froze, waited until Curt settled back down. He let out of sigh of relief, gently pressing a kiss to the top of Curt’s head. 

He was going to get both of them out of this.

* * *

“What’s your ideal housing situation?” Owen asked as he fiddled around with one of the gadgets the MI6 tech department gave him in the passenger seat. 

Curt made a choking noise. “What?”

“If you weren’t a spy what kind of place would you like to live in? Picket fences, apartment, paint me a picture here.”

“Well, I’d-I’d, uh, I’d want…” He saw Curt’s hands grip the steering wheel. “I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it. I’ve always been too busy to think about anything other than hotels and mom’s safehouse.”

“Hm.” Owen leaned back. That little seed of hatred just behind his sternum grew just a bit more. “Okay, I’ll help you figure it out. Apartment or house?”

“Uh… A house. I mean, eventually. Settling down somewhere permanent sounds tempting but I don’t know if I’d be able to do that right off the bat.” Curt cleared his throat. “Probably somewhere near my mom. Not with her, but close enough to visit pretty frequently.” He laughed, voice thick with tears. “Somewhere to plant some flowers. Like, that’s pretty stupid, but I kind of want it anyways?”

“Are you okay?” Owen asked softly.

Curt sniffed, raising a hand to wipe his eyes. “Ugh, yea, I’m fine. I’ve just never really thought about that before and it just made me realize that I’m really… Tired. Just really tired.”

“That’s fine. I rather understand the sentiment myself these days.” Owen rested his arm on the center console. “Am I in this picture for you?”

One hand dropped down from the wheel, intertwining fingers with Owen’s hand. “Of course you are.” Curt snorted. “I mean, if it could happen.”

Something surged up from deep inside of Owen. He swallowed, tugging at Curt’s hand. “Pull over.”

“What?”

“Just do it, it’s just for a second.”

“Okay…” Curt pulled over after thirty seconds or so of searching for a good place to stop. He put the car into park and turned to face Owen. “What is it?”

Owen reached up to hold Curt’s face, closing the distance between them. It wasn’t heated, wasn’t the same clashing of teeth of the late nights they so rarely got to relish in. All Owen tried to do was pour all of the emotions he couldn’t properly express through the simple connection. He leaned back slowly, stroked Curt’s hair.

“I’ll get us out, okay?” Owen said softly. “We’re gonna be okay. I’ll get you those stupid flowers.”

Curt laughed. Owen could hear the tears welling up in his voice again. “What kind?”

“Any kind you want.”

* * *

Lights flashed just behind Owen’s eyes, burning spots into his eyelids. He tried to breathe as deeply as he could but there never seemed to be enough air to fill up his lungs completely. Fingers trailed across his face, leaving something thick and wet in their wake.

“Curt?” He coughed. 

“It’s me.” The lights cleared enough that he could make out Curt’s face. A rather large amount of blood was dripping down his face from his hairline. 

“You’re hurt,” Owen rasped, reaching up with a shaking hand. 

“Your leg is fucked up pretty bad too,” Curt caught him by the wrist. “Can you walk on it?”

He took a moment to focus on the pain in his thigh and evaluate how bad it was. “No, definitely not.”

“Shit. I’ll send out the distress signal.”

Owen was halfway tempted to snap at him, insist they take care of it without involving the agencies. But his leg was not about to get better without help, and Curt should not be the one taking the brunt of his anger.

“We shouldn’t have had to do this,” Owen seethed.

“Well, we didn’t have a choice, did we?” Curt took off his jacket, balled it up and carefully slipped it under Owen’s foot to try and prop up his leg. 

“They’re basically sending us out to _die_ , Curt, can’t you see that? These missions keep becoming more and more dangerous. We’re reaching the end of our shelf life and they know it. Pretty soon they might not even set us up on collaborations anymore.”

“Oh, come on, they’re not that sinister.”

“They are, and you know it!” Owen shouted. Long, awkward silence settled over the two of them. It took even longer for Owen to work up the courage to say something again. “I just want a normal life again, or as close to normal as I can get with you.”

Curt leaned up against his shoulder. “We can’t just quit. We have classified information that they can’t just erase from our heads.”

“I know, I just…” Tears sprung up, already overflowing before Owen could stop it. 

“I get it.” Curt reached down and took Owen’s hand. 

He rested his head against the other’s. “It’s never going to be enough for them. You get that, right? They’re going to work us until we die and if this keeps up…”

“Hey, it’s like you said. You’re gonna get us out of this. I’m still holding you to those snapdragons.”

Owen didn’t know if he could do that anymore.


	2. lavender

Strangely enough, Owen was the most exhausted he'd ever felt in his lifetime. His feet ached, hands shook minutely from the fatigue settled into his bones. All from moving into a new house. There were still boxes stacked in the other room, mostly filled with things that Owen never wanted to have to see again, still a few towers of dishes yet to be placed in cupboards. But laying here in bed with the blankets tossed haphazardly over them, his heart was pounding against his ribs.

As Curt nuzzled his head into Owen's chest, he had to recall a time where they had been in a rather similar situation. He tried to command his heart to slow down, but it refused to listen. This time, however, it wasn't a panicked epiphany that drove it into a frenzy, it was real hope for an actual future.

“What the hell are you thinking about?” Curt mumbled. He was already halfway between sleep and the waking world. The kind of state that you just remembered into morning like a hazy dream.

Owen started to say something, and then realized how close he was to spilling over with tears. He cleared his throat, blinking rapidly. “I'm just happy, doll.”

“Well, I'm not.” He paused to yawn. “You chose some stupid ass fake names.”

“What's wrong with Nathaniel?”

“It sounds dumb? You didn't even ask me before making the fake IDs. Plus my mom could have made better ones anyways.”

Owen smiled. “You're just gonna have to get used to it _Nathan_.”

“I'll keep that in mind, _Theodore_.” Curt sighed, reaching blindly for Owen's hand. “Let's just sleep in for a couple days, okay?”

He caught Curt's hand, intertwining their fingers. “After we get everything unpacked.”

“Fuck off.”

Owen snorted. His leg was going to fall asleep sometime with the way Curt was laying on it, but he didn't care. “You've never been this grumpy when you were tired before, what's gotten into you?”

“Dunno.” He used Owen's hand to pull himself up. “I love you.” He pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I'm never going to be able to say that enough.”

The tears started to come back. “Might as well get a head start on finding out, hm?”

Curt scattered kisses across Owen's face, muttering _I love you_ after each one. There were a million different things Owen wished he could respond with but none of them were things he could truly say. The fireworks going off just under his skin after every kiss, the feeling of a balloon expanding in his chest that made his head light and hard to breathe but still a good feeling nonetheless.

“You should go to sleep already,” Owen whispered. “I know how you get in the mornings when you don't get enough sleep.”

“Fine.” Curt slipped away, situating himself snugly between Owen's body and arm. “I'll see you in the morning.”

Owen almost instinctively wrapped his arms around him. “See you in the morning.”

After Curt had fallen asleep, Owen stayed up for an extra hour. He was suddenly terrified. What if Curt had another nightmare? What if someone would break in? What if--God forbid--the agencies had already found them and would arrive to finish them off? But somehow, after realigning himself and focusing on the weight in his arms, everything felt alright.

Owen fell asleep with a smile on his face.

* * *

When Owen opened the door to knocking he did not expect to see a middle aged woman holding a platter of cookies. He blinked, hand still resting on the doorknob.

“Hello?” He tried. 

“Hi!” Her voice was bright and cheery to match the bright red lipstick on her face. “I’m Catherine Vincent, I just moved down the road to…” She pointed further down the road to the blue house that had been for sale for some months now. “That house! So… I’m stopping around the neighborhood to show my good will to everyone!”

“Thanks.” Owen felt very awkward. Truth be told, he’d never had to deal with an interaction like this one before, and he realized how poorly equipped he was to deal with it.  
He reached out to accept the platter only for Catherine to launch into another monologue of sorts. “I’ve actually been around for a few weeks now! I’ve just been so busy with unpacking and setting up I just haven’t had enough time to get around to this. Someone else lives in this house, right? I saw him out front in the flowerbeds the other day.”

Owen tried not to bristle too much at that. People _noticed_ things, it wasn’t suspicious. “Yea, he’s here right now, actually. He’d love to meet you.” He turned back to the house. “Nathan, there’s a new lady in the neighborhood, come say hello.”

Curt quickly appeared, miffed as ever at the fake name. Honestly, one would think he would have gotten over it by now. “Wow, the population is really growing around here.”

“Yes, it does feel like several new businesses opened doors just within the last few months.”

“That’s actually why I moved here,” Catherine piped up. “I’m helping my brother as he sets up a restaurant.”

“Really?” Curt now seemed enamoured with Catherine. Owen rolled his eyes. Always thinking with his stomach.

“Yep. You two should stop by sometime.” She winked at them. “I hear the fish is to die for!”

All of the air was sucked out of Owen’s lungs. It wasn’t exactly the same, but it was close enough, right? They’d actually found them. A small, logical voice said that an agent probably wouldn’t blow their cover like that, but the paranoid gut feeling told him otherwise.

“Excuse me for a second, I need to grab something from the other room,” Owen said, smiling serenely. He spun on his heels, stalking into the other room. He heard Curt excusing himself and following close behind.

“Owen!” Curt hissed. “What are you doing?”

He didn’t say anything. Owen turned into their bedroom, throwing open the closet door and digging around until he found the gun he’d stashed away months ago. Curt closed the bedroom door and rushed over to grab Owen’s wrist.

“Let me go!” Owen tried to pull his arm away, but Curt’s grip was like a vice.

“What the fuck are you thinking?!”

“They found us, I can’t let them _ruin_ everything-!”

“ _Owen, stop it!_ ” Curt shouted.

He froze, allowing Curt to slowly pull his hands down to his side. Curt leaned forward and rested his forehead against Owen’s. His thumb rubbed slow circles into Owen’s empty palm.

“It’s okay,” Curt said softly. “She’s just a regular civilian. You can’t just shoot her when she’s at the front door anyways.”

“But-”

“We’re _okay_ ,” Curt reaffirmed. “No one’s going to hurt us.”

“No one’s going to hurt us,” Owen parroted. Curt easily plucked the gun away, checking the safety before putting it down nearby. 

“I’m going to go back out there and ask her to leave. I’ll come back when she’s gone.”

_No_. “But what if-!”

“I was a spy too, Owen,” Curt said firmly. “Even if she _was_ another agent I can handle myself.”

He turned to leave. Owen’s fingers still itched to grab that gun, just for a measure of comfort, but he knew Curt wouldn’t have it. “Wait!”

Curt looked back at him. With shaking hands, Owen leaned forward and kissed him, soft and sweet. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

At least their last words would be good ones.

* * *

Owen let out a sigh, watching the clouds slowly turn from white, to pink, to orange as the sun sank lower and lower in the sky. Curt sat down in the seat next to him and easily slipped his hand into the other’s.

“How long is it going to be after this one?”

“Three thousand six hundred and fifty sunsets,” Owen replied immediately.

“Fuck, how did you do the math that fast?”

“It’s just multiplying three hundred fifty by ten, love.”

“It’s been that long, though, huh?” Curt leaned back, closing his eyes. “I still can’t believe you actually did this.”

Owen swung their linked hands just a bit. “Do you ever miss it?”

“Oh, kind of. Adrenaline is one hell of a drug. You’re better.”

“I could say the same about you.”

Curt just snorted. He opened his eyes, surveying the garden before them. “I think I want to mix things up a bit next planting session. Get some more blues in there.” 

“I could get behind some lavender,” Owen mused.

“A bit of anemone.”

“Violets.”

“Primrose.”

Owen smiled. “Well, we’re just becoming vertible encyclopedias on ornamental horticulture, aren’t we?”

“I don’t think I’d have it any other way.”

Among the whispering of the leaves in the garden and the balmy summer air, Owen fell in love with Curt all over again. He caught sight of the pink and orange snapdragons settled in the bed of hyacinth, tall stalks swaying in the breeze.

He wouldn’t have it any other way either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone requested a sequel to this fic with 2 endings, those being a canon deviation where curt and owen make it out (this chap) and one where curt reacts to owen's death with this in mind. That one is going to be next chapter, so yall just enjoy this one.
> 
> My saf tumblr is @spiesbian 
> 
> kudos are great but comments are even better


	3. love lies bleeding

_I'd never let you die_.

Curt leaned over the railing, clutching the metal bar so tight he was sure it would snap beneath his fingers. His lungs were burning, searing away any breath that happened to grace them. As his vision swam, he was pretty sure he was going to pass out.

He could see Owen far below. The British agent coughed, shuddered, then lay still. From this distance, Curt couldn't tell if he was breathing or not. Something deep inside of him knew he wasn't breathing.

For what was much longer than his time constraints called for, he just stared. All those times Owen had talked about their limited time flashed through his head. Curt hadn't listened and now Owen was…

He finally broke away before he vomited over the ledge. Broke into a sprint, the wind whistling past his ears. It all rose up, clawing at his bones, spilling over his eyes.

_What's your ideal housing situation?_

Curt didn't know where he was running.

_I've never really thought about it._

Was there any real safety left to run to anymore?

_I'll help you figure it out._

Was he just heading straight into a danger of a different kind?

_Am I in this picture for you?_

He wanted to die for the first time in years.

_Of course you are._

Curt burst out of the doors and into the freezing night air. His whole body felt like an exposed nerve, sensitive and weary to every excruciating touch. Wait. The delayed reaction to the hands grabbing his arm finally set in and he tried to throw them away. So the ringing in his ears wasn't just from the gunshots.

“Curt we have to get away from the building!” Barb shouted, still tugging at his jacket. When did she get here? “We'll be hit with debris!”

“What?” Curt choked out. It settled in, finally fresh, finally real. “Wait, no, I have to go back.”

“Are you kidding me?! We only have a few more seconds, tops!”

Either he had gotten a lot weaker or Barb had gotten a lot stronger. He couldn’t break free of her grip. “Owen's in there! I left him!”

“If he's not already out here then he's probably dead!”

“Let me _go_!”

Barb wrenched him away, begging Curt to calm down. He screamed even after the facility went up, until his throat could no longer take the strain and gave out. Curt struggled as Barb did her best to shove him into a vehicle. Owen had been right the entire time.

He was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright that's the canon ending. i'm about to dive into a much more fluffy project so i hope that yall stick around for that
> 
> catch me on tumblr at my saf blog @spiesbian
> 
> kudos are great but comments are even better

**Author's Note:**

> This came to me on a weird whim, and thusly I wrote it. Give me some pining for a comfortable life, babey.
> 
> Kudos are great but comments are even better
> 
> Catch me on my saf blog @spiesbian on tumblr


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